The Bent View

Here at Blackpool.VitalFootball we thought up an idea to have a weekly review rounding up all the football news, Pool and non-Pool. We tried to thing of some catchy names for the feature, Tangerine Talk, Pool View, Tangerine Round up, they were all, well….rubbish. So instead we've got a picture of former Pool winger Junior Bent and called it the Bent View.

Saving Grayson`s bacon

Three games in seven days, three wins the mood around the club could be all different, but instead a defeat and two draws were the outcome from the Vale, Chesterfield and Oldham matches and the pressure is mounting on Simon Grayson.

People have been saying about how Grayson has been give 10 games this season to prove himself. This magical number of 10 games has appeared neither from the chairman or president, it was Grayson who asked to be judged after ten games. If this is true it means the game against Doncaster on Saturday might be Grayson`s last in charge.

Déjà vu

If he does go it will be a repeat of last season when Pool`s 4-1 defeat to Doncaster was the final straw for Karl Oyston and he sacked Colin Hendry. But if Grayson manages to pull a win out will he be saved, does he have a probation period? Or is it time to get rid, in the past Karl Oyston has waited for the manager to go rather than sacking which would eventually mean paying out the rest of a contract. When Junior Bent was at the club Nigel Worthington was the man in charge. Worthy didn`t play Bent enough and it meant he had to go, after much deliberation and protesting, (who could forget Mick Hennigan and his Bob the Builders hat) Worthy went on his own accord.

To come in?

Grayson has recently said that he wouldn`t quit, and if Oyston is reluctant to sack due to the costs a standstill might be on our hands, a repeat of the Hendry problem. But this time with the ambition of Valrie Belokon it might mean a swift departure and the arrival of an experienced manager. Peter 'monkey for a 'ead' Reid has been mentioned as well as former Pool and Burnley boss Stan Turnent, who currently is facing charges of assault for a bust up at cricket ground in Burnley.

Father and Son

This week a BBC panorama documentary revealed the dirty underbelly of football transfers, marking out former Pool manager Sam Allardyce and son Craig of been accused of wrong doing.

Allardyce was manager at Bloomfield Road from the summer of 1994 till the summer of 96, His record at the club was good, winning 44 of 103 matches and reaching the play-offs in the season before his departure.

Allardyce brought in his son, who is now an agent in the game, from Preston, young Craig only made one substitute performance for Pool in a three year spell before moving onto Chesterfield. After flirting with a few other clubs he finished off at Boston in 2000. Since then he`s been involved in many transfers deals in the game as an agent and has been accused of receiving secret payments from other agents in three deals

It's a shame that dealings like this have gone on and continue to, the issue needs to be sorted soon with transparency in future dealings being the key to stamping out agents and club officials taking money out of the game.